


We Lucky Few

by willowsfavor



Category: Band of Brothers, Generation Kill, The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bob - Freeform, Combat, Military, Military Homophobia, Multi, Racism TW, WHAT THE HECK DO YOU PUT INTO TAGS ANYWAY, WWIII, World War III, gen kill - Freeform, hopefully this will be pretty accurate??, idk - Freeform, wwiii-au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-28
Updated: 2017-02-17
Packaged: 2018-09-20 13:19:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9493226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/willowsfavor/pseuds/willowsfavor
Summary: This is an HBO War fanfic based off of the two questions I needed answered:"How badly would Ray Person annoy the rest of the HBO war boys?"And"What would it look like for all of the HBO War boys to work in one, cohesive unit?"And thus I decided to start WW3. Better summary probably coming soon.





	1. Strawberry Wine

**Author's Note:**

> RACISM TW FOR THIS CHAPTER (it's not too bad).
> 
> \--------------
> 
> “He was working through college on my grandpa's farm—”
> 
> Brad looked up from over the collar of his jacket, hunched over next to a few cases of ammunition and weapons, forearms resting on his knees. 
> 
> “I was thirstin’ for knowledge, and he had a car—“  
> Ray Person was lounging on a few of the crates opposite him, stretched out like a cat in the middle of a patch of sunlight in an otherwise depressingly dark living room. Brad narrowed his eyes, lips twisting into a thin, disapproving line. 
> 
> “Yeah, I was caught somewhere between a woman and a child, when one restless summer we found love growing wild—“ 
> 
> “Ray.” Brad dragged his teeth along the inside of his lip. “Ray,” he growled again, ducking his head against the material of his collar as the wind picked up again. Ray, somehow, didn’t seem to notice. He propped himself up on an elbow and flipped his sunglasses out of his eyes, a cheshire-like grin almost taking up the entirety of his face. He skipped the rest of the first verse.
> 
> “LIKE STRAWBERY WINE, SEVENTEEN, THE HOT JULY MOON SAW EVERYTHING—“

“So, you’re telling me that you got a pass on all this and you joined up anyway?”

Nixon was sitting up just a little too straight, hands flat on his thighs. The material felt rough, almost unreal under his fingers. They’d trained with cold-weather uniforms on before, but knowing he was going into real combat was foreign, as if he had conjured the entire war up by himself. The United States had not seen war in his lifetime, nor his parents’ lifetimes either. The only thing that had kept him together before this was alcohol and comradery. This plane ride had none of that.

The hunk of metal they were being transported in would take them from Georgia to Washington, then from Washington to Alaska. It was trembling, jolting every so often as the course direction was corrected. He wanted so desperately to lean his head back against the plane, but he knew every little tremble would send his head bouncing. Nixon was too prideful to sleep against the man next to him, though the man next to him wasn’t too prideful to sleep against him. That man, of course, being Harry Welsh.

“Are you even listening to me, Nix?”

Nixon turned his head just slightly as Welsh’s shoulder bumped into his, sending his shoulder bumping into David Webster’s next to him. Webster didn’t seem to notice, and upon further inspection, the Harvard boy was found to be dead asleep. Typical. The boys could fall asleep anywhere at any time, all except for him. 

“Yeah, Harry, I’m listenin’,” Nixon half-heartedly drawled, bringing his fingers to his temples.

“If working for your parent’s company got you out of this shit, why didn’t you take that way out?” Harry was nervously rubbing his wrist. Poor Welsh—poor, engaged Welsh. Nixon would’ve traded places with him if he could; he wished he could’ve given his way out to someone like Harry, someone who deserved it, but it only applied to him. He carried that guilt with him constantly the first few weeks of bootcamp, but kept it hidden behind witty, sarcastic humor and a nonchalant attitude. 

“Well, I—I guess…” Nixon trailed off, furrowing his brows, wondering whether to tell the truth or not. If he was being fair, Welsh had become incredibly close with him and his best friend Dick over the past year. He supposed it would be a little cheap to lie to him now, especially when he figured the answer was a little too obvious. Instead he decided to play it off casually, a broad grin spreading across his features. “Well, I couldn’t let Dick come over here alone. I don’t even think he knew where Alaska was before this,” he joked, nodding to the redhead next to the door of the plane. Dick Winters was a hell of a man, but he looked more like a boy when he was asleep like that, propped up against one of the other men, his lips parted just slightly.

“You’ve gotta be _kidding_ me,” Harry crowed, shaking his head. Across from them, Sergeant Martin gave the pair a disapproving look. Chin down, nostrils flared, the stocky sergeant most certainly resembled a maddened bull, exasperated at being kept awake. Nixon’s cheeks burned—he hadn’t expected Martin to be listening in on the conversation, but Harry was always just a little too loud when yelling over the roar of the engines. “You’re telling me that you entered the draft because of _Dick_? I guess I should have figured that one out from the beginning.” 

“Hey now, Welsh, I had no idea he’d turn out a leader like this. He was just the quiet boy from down the street last I checked, now you’d think regimental thinks he hung the moon.”

“Wait—“ Harry broke off, tugging on the sleeve of his uniform. “He _didn’t_ hang the moon?”

“Christ, Welsh, you’re insufferable.”

“Kitty doesn’t think so.”

“I think she’s the only one.” Nixon leaned over, placing his elbows on his thighs, holding his face in his hands. In the cockpit, the copilot leaned to the side and gave the signal, two fingers held up to the handful of men that were still awake. They were getting close to Washington, that was all Nixon could decipher through his weary state of mind.

“Hey, Nix,” Harry said after a few moments, a look of subdued mischief dancing across his expression.

“Yeah, Harry?”

“Do you think we’ve passed over Kansas yet?”

“Why?”

“I’ve never been to Kansas. I wanna say, _‘We’re not in Kansas anymore!’_ ”

“Go to sleep, Harry.”

Harry chuckled to himself for what seemed like at least five minutes, and every minute in that airplane felt like an hour. It wasn’t that Nixon didn’t enjoy being around people, especially Harry and Dick, but they had already been packed tightly together for four hours. He hadn’t gotten a lick of sleep the past two days and he didn’t function well without sleep. He was thinking too much. And he was getting a little too anxious for his own good, crammed tight in such a small space, especially with Dick asleep at the end of the plane. Lewis didn’t have his person awake with him, but he wasn’t so selfish to wake Dick up. If anyone needed sleep at that moment, it was Dick Winters.

Nixon had grown up with Winters, never seeing the boy as anything more than what he found the first day they met: seven years old and scrawny, freckles all over his face, that goofy smile he wore when Nix invited him to come over on the spot. Dick had grown into all of that, and Nix supposed he found it difficult to accept. Oddly enough, he saw himself as the older brother even though it was Dick that was always taking care of him, keeping him out of trouble in high school and then college. Nix had to repay him somehow. Dick was still just a boy, and maybe so was Nixon, but he was absolutely determined to protect Dick no matter the cost. 

The rest of the ride consisted of Nixon fading in and out of sleep. If the U.S. military taught him anything, it was how to sleep anywhere at any time, and sitting up to boot. He only found himself leaning on Harry once, and the second the warmth of Harry’s uniform hit his cheek, he bolted upright. Luckily, the lieutenant didn’t seem to notice. In fact, near the end of the flight, Nixon found himself to be one of the few still awake despite nodding off every once in a while. It seemed the anti-airsickness pills knocked everyone out except him and a few others. _‘Immunity—the one time I would regret that,’_ he mused to himself. 

Another hour passed. The co-pilot leaned back and tapped Dick awake, who then shook the boys around him into consciousness. Nix grunted and slapped Welsh on the thigh a few more times before he was eventually roused, though reluctantly. Nixon tried not to think about the multiple times he’d witnessed botched flight landings at their previous station. The engines groaned outside the window to his right as the pilots circled the airfield. The landing was smooth, though the Captain still held his breath anyway.

Frigid air hit his lungs first; Washington was freezing. Nixon had become accustomed to the familiar warmth of thirty men all packed like sardines in an outdated airplane that probably was meant to carry more like twenty. The bombings on their own soil were unexpected, leaving the military floundering, thrusting only what they could in the direction of an old-school army unit. In decades past, paratroopers had become almost nonexistent. They were the last paratrooper division the United States had to offer: four regiments, each with three battalions and not enough men. This was the case across the board due to government cutbacks year after year, and besides, to permanently put the regiment to rest, the military had quit handing out extra checks and benefits to be a paratrooper. 

In other words, why jump out of airplanes and risk a malfunction when you can keep your boots on the ground? Why give high risk operations to paratroopers when special forces exist?

The one thing the 101st had going for it was expendability.

Nixon pondered this, wrapping his fingers around the straps of his pack as he jogged after the lieutenant. It wasn’t even his idea to join the paratroopers in the first place. He would much rather be an infantryman, or better, safe back home. His comrades thought him some sort of selfless idiot for joining up despite his history, but really, Nixon couldn’t bear the idea of Dick leaving him behind to become a hero. No, it was Dick who wanted to be a paratrooper. And whenever Nixon cornered the redhead to ask, the only response he got was some sentimental bullshit about how his grandfather’s grandfather was a paratrooper, or about how they would get to jump into the middle of combat before anyone else. Dick just wanted to get it all over with. He didn’t want to have to wait.

“Hey, slow down, kid, it’s not like a war’s goin’ on,” Nixon panted, tone tinged with humor-filled sarcasm despite the twisted frown. He was struggling to keep up with Dick after sitting still for hours on end. Adjacent to them were planes, vomiting up paratrooper after paratrooper; like little ants they scurried from one end of the tarmac to the other, seeking to claim beds and start squabbles before they could be debriefed and fed. None of the boys seemed to notice the chill that was already reddening their cheeks and revealing their choppy breaths.

Dick turned slightly to look over his shoulder, the nonchalance of his acknowledgement of Nixon’s presence aggravating the latter. Teeth chattering and muscles aching, Nixon drew his military-issued jacket tighter around him before reaching to yank on Dick’s sleeve. “Hey, we’re rooming together right? Because, I know you like to room with Lipton because he’s so damn nice, but Dick, if I have to sleep with Meehan “rolls-around-all-night” in the same room again, I may off myself before this war even gets good for us. And I didn’t get my ass kicked for a year straight for nothing.” 

The lieutenant stopped in his tracks, adjusted the pack on his back, and waited for Nixon to catch up before he let out a low, knowing chuckle. “Yes, Lew, I’m bunking with you. Don’t see any reason why it would cause trouble. You’re a headquarters staff member, I’m Echo Company’s first platoon leader, makes perfect sense.”

“Is that sarcasm I’m detecting?”

“A little. In all honesty, in this mess, no one will notice. Besides, Meehan can easily find another staffer to torture. Welsh, maybe?”

“Aw, you don’t hate Welsh that much, do you?”

“He sleeps like a rock, Nix. More so than you.”

“That’s fair.”

The sleeping quarters weren’t anything special, just tents thrown together for a one-night population boom on such a small, remote military base. There was enough room for four people to a tent. Not even Battalion HQ got better bunks than the regular men, meaning Nixon would actually get away with hiding from Strayer for a night with Dick and his men. Besides, he would get to pick his best friend’s brain for the first time in almost a month. Their life had been chaos since the first wave of invaders on U.S. soil. Nixon had been nearly handcuffed to a table filled with maps of Alaska for two weeks by Lt. Colonel Strayer and Colonel Sink as Russia continued to push boundaries. Well, it looked as if the madness had paid off.

Nixon claimed a tent, threw his stuff onto one of the cots, and motioned for Dick to do the same. They would have a quiet moment to themselves, just a moment, before he knew he was required to seek out Strayer and Sink and discuss the imminent plans, along with the company commanders. Dick would get the tent to himself, more than likely. Most of the boys would be playing cards, smoking, wrestling, or fiddling with radios, but Dick would be by himself—thinking. Nixon knew that for certain. 

“Hey, I’m headed to HQ,” he said after scooting his pack under his bed, jerking his thumb toward where he assumed Battalion HQ had set up. Truth be told, he knew the second his ass hit the cot, it would take a slew of men to drag him back out again. He was exhausted—there was no way he was allowing him to lay down, not yet.  
“Mhm,” was the only response Nixon got from Dick, but it was as good as any. The redhead had laid down on the cot, crossed his arms across his chest, and fixated his gaze on where the fabric was sewn together, more than likely cherishing the quiet before some of his boys came stomping in to take a cot.

\------------

_“He was working through college on my grandpa's farm—”_

Brad looked up from over the collar of his jacket, hunched over next to a few cases of ammunition and weapons, forearms resting on his knees. 

_“I was thirstin’ for knowledge, and he had a car—“_

Ray Person was lounging on a few of the crates opposite him, stretched out like a cat in the middle of a patch of sunlight in an otherwise depressingly dark living room. Brad narrowed his eyes, lips twisting into a thin, disapproving line. 

_“Yeah, I was caught somewhere between a woman and a child, when one restless summer we found love growing wild—“_

“Ray.” Brad dragged his teeth along the inside of his lip. _“Ray,”_ he growled again, ducking his head against the material of his collar as the wind picked up again. Ray, somehow, didn’t seem to notice. He propped himself up on an elbow and flipped his sunglasses out of his eyes, a cheshire-like grin almost taking up the entirety of his face. He skipped the rest of the first verse.

_“LIKE STRAWBERY WINE, SEVENTEEN, THE HOT JULY MOON SAW EVERYTHING—“_

Brad’s gaze shifted from his left to his right, finally reaching in his pocket to grab desperately a protein bar. The second his fist wrapped around the unsuspecting food item, the lieutenant ripped it out of his pocket and chucked it at Person’s head. His aim was deadly.

 _“MY FIRST TASTE OF LOVE, OH, BITTERSWEET—SHIT._ Ow, goddamn, Brad, that kinda hurt.”

“Yeah, Sergeant? Tell that to my bleeding ears one more time.” Brad paused, his eyes twinkling despite the harsh frown thrown in Ray’s direction. “How many fucking times have I said no country music? Vintage country music at that, shit, Ray.”

Ray grinned back at Brad and flipped his sunglasses back down again. “Can I sing Danger Zone?”

“No.”

“What about September?”

“ _No,_ Ray. This is resting time.”

Ray let out a long, melancholy sigh before saying nothing at all. It was music to Brad’s ears. The tents were stuffed to the brim with men playing cards, wrestling, and arguing about who got to put their stuff where. Brad couldn’t take it anymore after the first hour and had ducked outside for some peace, though the cold didn’t suit him. Ray had followed at his heels after a few moments, mostly because he felt a little bewildered without his companion politely telling him to “shut the fuck up” every five or so minutes.

“Resting time my _ass_ , how the fuck are we supposed to sleep knowing we’re going up against the Russian army? Half of our radios won’t even work without me slamming them against the ground a few dozen times.” 

Brad tilted his head against the side of the case of ammo. Leaning over the top was—

“Lopez! Tina! Fuck yeah, girl, I thought you ran off to Mexico by now,” Ray yelped, swinging his legs over the cargo and pumping a fist in the air. “We’re a little far North for you, aren’t we?”

Tech-4 Lopez, with both her elbows resting on the case above Brad, flipped off her cheeky, fellow radioman. “Yeah, there’s a trailer park not far from here, Person, aren’t you feeling the call of your people?”

“Damn, homie, that’s cruel. Real cruel.”

“Not as cruel as me having to look at your face every day for the past year.”

“ _God_ , Tina, I thought we were friends.”

“Play nice, kids, there’s plenty of fighting to do yet,” Brad muttered into the sleeve of his jacket, smiling despite his solitude being cut short. He would find time to himself later, and no doubt be interrupted by Lieutenant Fick trying to debrief him on something unnecessarily. He wasn’t sure why, but he and Fick had come to trust each other. Fick relied on him a great deal more than he seemed to on Heyliger and Randleman, and maybe that was because Brad didn’t care much for fraternizing with the rest of the men. Neither did Nate. Both preferred to keep to themselves, the only difference was that Brad couldn’t shake the unofficial job that had been thrust upon him: taking care of the radio techs. 

Tina hopped over the case and slid down on the other side next to him. “I don’t understand why they’re throwing us in this mess with shitty radios. Seems like we had better equipment back in Toccoa.”

“Better equipment went to the men overseas, I bet you,” Brad advised, resting his chin on his forearm, gaze settling in the middle of the horizon.

“Do you ever wonder where the National Guard is in all of this?” Ray lean back on both of his hands, rhythmically bouncing his heels off the crate. When no one responded, he continued. “I mean, aren’t they supposed to guard us? Nationally? Isn’t that their job? Because I feel like you shouldn’t get a free pass to be in the military if you don’t do the shit that’s in your name, right?”

“Shut the fuck up, Ray,” Lopez warned, getting up on her knees to snatch the protein bar from the dirt, where it had bounced off of Ray’s head.

“Hey, Person, Lopez, have you got your shit to work yet? I think I know what I’m doing now,” George Luz called from a few yards away.

“Luz! My other favorite Mexican!” Ray invited, waving him over with his entire arm.

“Portuguese, Ray, I’m Portuguese. Dumbfuck,” Luz corrected. “And Lopez isn’t even Mexican.”

“I’m Dominican, you white-trash, trailer-park—“ Lopez yelled, her voice trembling with the effort to hold back laughter.

“Okay, okay! Goddamn! Okay!” Ray yelped, ducking away from the flurry of insults.

Luz quickly crowded the two, squatting down in the dirt next to them. Brad saw this as his cue to slip away before the trio noticed and tried to find a reason for him to parent them again. He stood while they argued over the logistics of their radios and proceeded to wander along the open tarmac, among the crews of men that were unloading only the necessary crates. 

_‘As long as I keep moving,’_ he thought to himself, _‘I can’t get dragged into anything.’_

It was a welcome responsibility to lead a squad of soldiers. He liked the logistics, he liked the work, but some parts were less acceptable than others. Brad had turned into a caretaker for a lot of different people coming from a lot of different backgrounds. He wasn’t cut out for that sort of thing, but Brad was nothing if he wasn’t adaptable. Maybe he wasn’t father material, but he could be “reluctant uncle” material, which was by far better than nothing. 

As his boots carried him aimlessly from one end of the tarmac to the other, he found it amusing how he almost always ended up right in Nate Fick’s path. Nate always seemed to know exactly where to find him, or maybe he just always knew where to find Nate. 

“How are your men settling in, Brad?” His platoon leader stopped in front of him, one hand resting on the rifle on his hip. The men always joked that Nate Fick had a “baby face” of sorts, and while Brad did admit that from time to time Nate did have an unusually youthful radiance about him, the lieutenant was anything but immature. In fact, he was one of the most capable leaders Brad had ever served under. However, with the freezing air buffeting the both of them, Nate’s cheeks, nose, and lips had turned a bright pink. Maybe, for once, Brad knew what they were talking about. 

“Sir, I think Sergeant McLellan and Private Murphy would object to being called a man,” Brad articulated, unable to hide the ghost of a smile sneaking its way onto his features. 

“You know what I meant.”

“I believe they’re settling in just fine. Has regimental briefed Echo yet?”

“Doesn’t look like it. We’re scrambling out here, Brad. How could they not have seen this coming?” Lt. Fick shook his head, rubbing his face with his hand. Brad hesitated to respond, merely offering a shrug of his shoulders. He hadn’t thought much about it. The U.S. Military was one giant fuck up after another—all he cared about was how they were going to defeat the enemy.

“What about dinner?” Brad quirked an eyebrow.

“What about it?”

“If you had Ray Person in your squad, you would be thinking of ways to shut him up too. Food, Nate, food is one of those things.”

Lt. Fick’s only condolences were a short laugh. He shook his head, adjusted the helmet on his head, and shook his head again. “Did you forget? He’s in my platoon.”

“Not the same thing, sir, not the same thing.”

“That’s fair. How about I see about it and get back to you?”

Brad nodded and brushed past his superior. He would be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about what they would get fed that night. After all, it was known that soldiers about to go into combat got a hearty meal. They would be facing snow, ice, and death. The least Brad could get was some warm food in his belly. But it was easier to throw Ray under the bus rather than betray his stoic, “Iceman” exterior. Nothing ever bothered him, nothing ever got to him. Not the aid station girls that jogged past him, regulation-free hair tumbling down their shoulders, not Ray Person singing in his ear (unless it was country music), and definitely not hunger.

After a few more paces along the tarmac, Brad found himself then wandering among the tents, nearly tripping over men and women alike that were bustling about, trying to keep busy, keep their minds off the looming combat. It was the waiting game that Brad disliked so much, and without anything to keep his hands busy, he was bristling with impatience. 

“Sir?”

Brad looked over his shoulder. Then he looked down. Ah, there she was.

“Sir, I’m sorry to interrupt.” Sergeant McLellan, despite her inherent short figure, was a force to be reckoned with. She nearly put Ray in his place faster than Brad could. She was sharp too, and Brad found he could rely on her to get something done and get it done quickly. She didn’t like to play games.

“Yup, Mac?”

“It’s Ray.”

Brad’s face didn’t betray the inward sigh that interrupted his train of thought. “What about him?”

“He, ah, he _burned_ himself, sir.”

“Jesus. Again? Don’t tell me he messed with another coffeemaker.”

“No. He was trying to prove to Luz how to start a fire with a couple of wires.”

Brad paused for a moment. The exasperated, but amused, look on Sierra’s face reflected his own thoughts.

“Sergeant, remind me how long we’ve been here again.”

“Three hours.”

“ _Three hours_.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Right. Of course. Of fucking course.”


	2. Hawkmoon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Nixon stood back from the broad oak table in front of him, eyes narrowed and arms crossed. The room was silent, smoky, and lit only by the tiny device sitting on the corner of the oak table. The hologram that lit up the table reflected light every which direction, turning the men and women crowded around it a bright, luminescent blue._
> 
> _Colonel Sink swept his hand across the projection, bringing his hands together over Anchorage and then drawing them out again to zoom in on the biggest city in Alaska. “This,” he began, stepping back so that the rest of the crew could observe unobstructed. “This is Anchorage. This is where the Russians have set up their CP,” he said through the cigar bouncing lazily between his teeth._
> 
> _Captain Meehan leaned forward, both hands spread across the table. “When I pictured Anchorage, I didn’t picture a major city. How many civilians are we talking here?”_
> 
> _“Most had time to evacuate, but this could get complicated, men,” was the uneasy reply._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOPE YOU ENJOY. At the end it was just a little indulgence for my kiddos before the WAR STARTS.
> 
> HELL YEAH.

Nixon stood back from the broad oak table in front of him, eyes narrowed and arms crossed. The room was silent, smoky, and lit only by the tiny device sitting on the corner of the oak table. The hologram that lit up the table reflected light every which direction, turning the men and women crowded around it a bright, luminescent blue.

Colonel Sink swept his hand across the projection, bringing his hands together over Anchorage and then drawing them out again to zoom in on the biggest city in Alaska. “This,” he began, stepping back so that the rest of the crew could observe unobstructed. “This is Anchorage. This is where the Russians have set up their CP,” he said through the cigar bouncing lazily between his teeth.

Captain Meehan leaned forward, both hands spread across the table. “When I pictured Anchorage, I didn’t picture a major city. How many civilians are we talking here?”

“Most had time to evacuate, but this could get complicated, men,” was the uneasy reply.

Nixon pursed his lips, but didn’t say anything. The swell of the mountain range nearly blocked his view of Haldane, but the pair’s eyes met anyway. “But we aren’t dropping on Anchorage, not yet?” Nixon finally asked through furrowed eyebrows. “Why are you showing this to us? The original plan was Whittier, then Kenai to open up the port, wasn’t it?”

“Right, Nixon, but we’re the first boots on the ground since the invasion besides the National Guard presence over there. And you know they were damned good for nothing. I imagine most are off in some POW camp in Siberia about now.” Sink jerked the cigar out of his mouth and rubbed his temple. “It very well could be that we head straight for Anchorage after Whittier. Our intelligence isn’t good up here, fellas, we don’t know much of anything unless civilians can get reports to us.” The Colonel took another drag and puffed it out over the hologram. A few pixels twitched in protest, but the image righted itself again.

“I think we’re in over our heads here.” Haldane frowned, dragging his palm across his jawline. “But then again we’re paratroopers, we’re always a little in over our heads,” he added, almost to himself in the way he looked down at his boots and let out a thoughtful sigh. The other Captains leading companies within the 506th Regiment didn’t seem to notice, they were studying the various yellow and red pathways snaking along the streets, highlighting potential future battlegrounds.

“Well, Captain, keep in mind that the 3rd Infantry Division will be coming in from Canada to try and take Anchorage from the North, then 1st Infantry from the West, but it just so happens that we may beat them all square to it.” Sink shifted his weight from one foot to the other, one hand on his hip, the other clutching the cigarette between his fingers like a lifeline. Nixon thought that if he stayed one more second in that smoke-filled tent, he might suffocate. It would spare him fighting, he thought, but Dick would never forgive him.  
“I’ve installed the map onto your intelligence devices. Don’t forget to destroy those suckers if surrender looks imminent,” the Colonel instructed. “Now, on to Whittier.”

The meeting was over quicker than the Captain realized. It was a textbook example of an assault, but the supposed easy nature of the mission was what disturbed him the most. When officers underestimated the mission at hand, that was when men got killed. He knew it wasn’t his job to so much worry about the logistics as it was to relay information back and forth, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that Sink wasn’t thinking about Whittier so much as he was Anchorage. Some of the other Captains seemed to share the same sentiment, sobered into silence.

Nixon followed at Meehan’s heels out of the tent the second freedom was granted. “Jesus, Tom, this is becoming too real.”

“For us? Nixon, we aren’t even on the front lines. Send your regards to Ack-Ack, he’ll need all the prayers he can get,” Meehan cautioned, turning to look over his shoulder at “Ack-Ack” Haldane as the Echo Company commander sought out his underling, that being Echo Company S-1, “Hillbilly” Jones.

Nixon’s gaze lingered on the Echo Company commanders momentarily before turning his attention to Meehan. “Why don’t you help Delta and Fox companies get their shit together?”

“Are you pawning me off, Nix?”

“Nah, of course not, but I’ve got a rather direction-ally challenged, red-headed, future eskimo I need to explain this real slow-like to. It’s called delegating.”

“What about 1st and 3rd Battalions?”

“Were you paying attention at all in there?”

“Er—yes.”

“Sixta’s got 1st, Captain Casey has 3rd Battalion to debrief.”

“ _Right_ ,” Meehan affirmed with a suspicious brow raise, but nothing more. He’d gotten used to Nixon’s preference for Echo Company by now, after all, that was where Nixon had come from. He’d been a platoon leader, then got picked out by Strayer and Sink damn quick to work intelligence. He was sharp when he wasn’t drinking, but then again, when was he not drinking?

As the sound of Meehan’s boots faded behind him, Nix straightened out his jacket and swept towards Haldane and Eddie, clapping a hand on the former’s back. The Captain didn’t startle. In fact, his gaze didn’t even lift from the thin, gray-scale map in his hands. Like their handheld transceivers, with one whisper of guarded passcode it would light up in all different colors, highlighting lowlands and highlands, advantageous routes picked out by the commanders, or even suspected enemy holdings.

“Gather the boys, Ack-Ack, we’ve got a hell of a lot of information to cover,” Nixon crowed.

Lieutenant Jones looked over his shoulder at T-5 Eames, who had been lurking outside of the tent, awaiting orders ever since Echo Company’s officers have left the tent. “You heard the Captain, go round ‘em up,” he directed before turning his attention back to the map.

Eames’ guarded expression never wavered. In fact, unless given a reason to, she lacked much expression at all. Nixon quite liked her.

“So,” he began with a sardonic smirk. “It begins.”

Haldane didn’t seem nearly as amused as Nixon. “If we sweep the place as quickly as they say we will, by God, Nixon, we’ll be the first in Anchorage. That’s a suicide mission, but you know Taylor will push for it. And Sink won’t back down from a challenge.” Echo Company’s leader seemed more astounded than afraid, shaking his head as streaks of red and blue snaked between hills, shores, and roads.

Nixon leaned around Haldane to look at Jones, who met his gaze evenly. The man was as unflinching as ever. “If anyone can pull this son of a bitch off,” Nixon declared, “it’s you, Ack-Ack.”

Haldane let out one last grumble, despite the grateful smile that crept across his features, before rolling up the map and stuffing it in his back pocket. The enlisted men and women were trickling into the wide-open space of the tarmac, just a few meters from the tent that had just been stooped in. Nixon analyzed the crowd, sweeping it until he found a familiar red against a sea of khaki and gray.

Winters lifted a brow. Nixon made a face at him.

“Good evening, soldiers,” Haldane began, waiting for the resounding “good evening” that echoed in reply. “We’re heading out in two nights, as I’m sure most of you know by now. 2200 sharp.” He paused, nosing the toe of his boot into the dirt. Someone coughed in the gathered crowd. “Second Battalion is taking Whittier, first Battalion is taking Portage, and third Battalion is taking Alyeska. Officers, platoon leaders, you will be briefed on your objectives by Lieutenant Jones, Sergeant Eames, and myself. And _er_ —“ Haldane looked over to Nixon. “Captain Nixon will be giving a quick overview.”

This was where the man excelled. Public speaking and demonstrations were not a problem for him. He motioned for Lieutenant Keller, who happened to be lingering near the front, to hand him her transceiver. It was one of the features on those little communication devices that Nixon appreciated the most. He placed his on the ground three meters from Keller’s and motioned them on.

“ _Spades_.”

Bursts of blue and yellow light exploded from the lenses that quickly emerged from a well-hidden compartment within the transceivers. The regional map of Anchorage, Whittier, and other sub-regions sprang to life. Nixon waved his hand over the map, focusing in on the bay area of their mission.

“Dog Company will be landing on the shore and taking out the reported machine guns stationed overlooking the docks. Fox company will be landing to west and will flank the city, making sure that when we flush out the Russians, they have no place to run. In the case that we need support, Fox Company will be there to give it. What this means is, as you should have guessed by now, Echo Company will be doing some heavy lifting.”

No groans, no protests, but a few men frowned deeply enough that Nixon forced a smile and quipped, “take it as a compliment,” before moving on. “First platoon will lead the way. The little intelligence we have says that they’ve walled themselves in, meaning mortar squad will need to break open the way before first platoon can get anywhere. Second platoon will follow, and third platoon after that. We’ll fan across the city. First platoon takes the east, third platoon takes the west, and second platoon takes the south until Dog Company can break through. This is simple enough, men; it’s textbook. You’ll break up into squads and go building by building, but Whittier isn’t much of anything compared to Anchorage. And frankly, we’re crossing that bridge when we get there.”

That wasn’t exactly true. Fifty years ago, nothing south of Anchorage was much of anything except fishing ports. But after oil regulations had been relaxed, the area had boomed as new innovations lead to discovering oil underneath Alaska’s tough, ice-dense earth. It was still small, but places like Portage and Alyeska had transformed from shantytowns to decent sized cities as families from across the continent moved in. Whittier was the largest of them all, being a port city, but it was manageable with the right commanders. Manageable. That didn’t account for losses.

After smoothing over a few last details, Nixon cut the map projection off and tossed the device back to Keller, who flashed him a grateful smile. He motioned her to follow him as the men and women momentarily turned their attention back to Haldane, who was calling a few of the officers forward. He singled out Dick with ease, cutting him off from his conversation with his platoon leader, Lieutenant Compton.

“Hey, easy, Nixon, what’s the hurry? Is there a war going on or something?” Compton beamed, revealing his unnaturally perfect smile.

“That’s my line, Buck,” Nixon asserted with a snort. “Hey, Dick, you know what you’re doing right? Make sure Guarnere knows that the second that pathway is blown open, he needs to provide covering fire for your platoon and second platoon. They’ll follow in from behind a-“

“Lew.” Winters interrupted his friend’s information dump with a half-smile and a firm grip on his upper arm. “I know what I’m doing. We’ve gone over a thousand of these procedures, remember? It's textbook.”

“Right,” Nixon replied, as if he hadn't just been doing exactly what he got onto Dick about: nervously trying to take control of situations he didn't trust. 

“Besides, I think Haldane has us covered.”

“Well alright, Dick, but if you get killed because Ack-Ack didn’t have some critical piece of information only I would have, then it’s your funeral,” Nixon jested.

“Lew, if you left out some critical information only you know, it’s everyone’s funeral, including your own when Sink gets his hands on you.”

\-----

“Christ, it’s one of your last nights on earth and you can’t down a beer?” Donald Malarkey swung around on the bar stool he was occupying, clutching a beer in each fist.

Ruth leaned into the counter and made a face as the room temperature liquid slid down her throat. “Ugh. How am I supposed to drink knowing I’m going into combat? What the hell’s wrong with that?”

“It’s not in the Airborne spirit, Stephens, it’s just not,” he chided, making a “tsking” noise with his tongue before stretching his arm across the counter and shoving his other beer into the chest of Skip Muck. Both of them were drunk, and Ruth took it upon herself to remain an observer rather than a partaker. Behind her, Private Anne Jones, was doing the same. Those that were not drinking were there for the poker, the music, or the shameless behavior that could be excused before being sent out into the field.

Ruth said nothing in response, just shook her head and laughed into the neck of her bottle. She was good-natured; the men liked her because she laughed at their dreadful jokes and turned down their advances politely. The odd thing about her was, as dainty as Ruth liked to pretend she was, the second she held a gun in her hands, she became a different person. Reserved. Calculating. Malarkey wasn’t necessarily sure what was going on up there all the time, but he trusted her nonetheless. She took her job seriously, that was what counted.

“Hey, Skip, how’d it go with Private Murphy?” Malarkey pressed, turning his attention away from Ruth as she wandered off with Anne into the swarm of men and women crowded in and out of the makeshift bar at the edge of the base. 

“She declined my drink and my invitation to dance. I think I freaked her out. Shit, Malarkey, I thought I knew what I was doing. These girls are impossible! I thought I knew 'em too,” Skip complained, resting his cheek on the neck of the beer clutched in his fist. 

Malarkey’s gaze drifted from his companion to the wide entryway. There was no door to the bar, rather it had been a converted storage unit with a broad, barn-like door that slid open and closed by a control panel sitting on one of the arches. But it wasn’t the technology he cared about, it was who was making an entrance. The redhead struck his hand out across the counter again and grabbed Skip by the shirt, dragging him forward as if he wasn’t already looking.

“Well, Skip, you’re in luck, because someone let the nurses out.”

"I’m going to die.” It was the alcohol talking. In fact, Muck looked more alive than he had since they’d gotten their orders for Alaska. And Malarkey couldn’t blame him for it. The “aid station” girls, or “nurses” as they were nicknamed (though they medics in their own rights, just like the field medics), were notoriously attractive, patient, and put up with more shenanigans than most. That didn’t mean they couldn’t be snappy, impatient, or angry when they needed to put their foot down, but generally speaking, they were saints.

“Look, look there’s Aria. You know, Lassetier? _Lassie_? Hey, is Shifty here? You know his eyes go round as saucers whenever she comes round,” Malarkey teased, jabbing his elbow into Muck’s arm as if it were Shifty instead. They liked to give him hell about it. Shifty just about melted in front of every girl that approached him. It took him a few weeks to get used to training with them, but even then it seemed like his drawl was at its worst whenever he was around the nurses.

“Don’t tease him, Don, he’ll think he doesn’t stand a chance. And I think I’d pay to see him get turned down,” Muck slurred.

“Skip, that’s really fucked up.” Malarkey paused, taking a last gulp of his beer. “I call Owens. I call her. I can’t get in trouble for flirting with a nurse, right?”

“You can’t just call a woman. Sexism, Malarkey, it’ll eat you alive,” Muck snickered. “You know what? I prefer Sergeant Clarke anyway. Catch you on the flipside, and if you get a date out of this, I’ll personally buy you beer for the rest of your life.”

The redhead let out a huff, leaning his back against the counter as the girls sought out the field medics first, then their fellow women in combat. It was an age old rule, it seemed. The women never approached the men outright, at least not at first, meaning Malarkey was at a clear disadvantage. Liquid bravery had already taken hold of him, however, and he was out of his seat with another bottle before his brain could scream at him to halt, to put the brakes on, to consider that the last thing any of those girls wanted was a night with a soldier about to go into battle.

“Hey, Sergeant Owens, has anyone gotten you a beer yet?” He lifted the glass bottle up for the nurse to see for herself.

Erin Owens spun on her heels to face Malarkey, peering up at him with clear brown eyes. Everything about her was a heavy contrast: pale skin, but lengthy, long, black hair and dark eyes. 

Malarkey gulped.

“No, no one has.” The warm, wide grin that spread across her features was almost painful to him. “But I don’t think tonight’s a night where I’ll be drinking too much, Malarkey, I’m sorry.” The girls behind her, Sergeants Ashland Taylor and Anna Hayden, were holding back a few giggles behind tightly closed lips.

“Well, you know, just thought I would ask. That’s fine, just fine,” Don clamored, curtly nodding his head, finding it time to flee and take the loss. His first instinct was to look around and make sure that Muck hadn’t watched the scene go down. After all, after all of that jawing, it looked like he was in just as tough a spot as his friend was. 

“Hey! Malarkey! I’ll take the beer! I’m dying of thirst over here.”

Just as Malarkey found his seat again, he was greeted by Sergeant Taylor, who no doubt felt a little pity for him after such a display. “Oh yeah, take it, please. At least someone can put it to good use.” He cracked a lopsided grin, pushing it down the counter toward Ashland. 

“Graceful in defeat, are we? This is a friend beer, you know that right?”

“Of course I do, damn it Ash, you’re killin’ me. Cut me some slack here!”

“Just making sure,” she asserted with a wink, popping the cap off with the edge of the counter. 

The pair drank together in silence for a few moments before Skip came wandering back again, missing both his beer and the one he had taken to try and pass off on a girl. Defeat was obviously written across his face. “Damn it. Clarke didn’t feel like drinking, so Ray and Lopez swooped in and snatched them both out of my hands before I could do shit. They’re like weasels, Malark, they’re _weasels._ ” 

“Aw, no problem Skip, Malarkey got turned down in front of like five of us. Owens isn’t much of a drinker, but I don’t think he knew that,” Ash teased, clamoring into the seat next to Malarkey.

“C’mon, Taylor, that wasn’t necessary. Really?” 

The rest of the night involved little to no flirting, but a great deal of fist fighting and insulting. Malarkey slipped away from the scene once it became a little too much for him, favoring the bone-chilling openness to the claustrophobic “storage unit” turned bar. He wandered among the tents, eavesdropping on a few drunken conversations while at it. Some men were still jammed into tents, playing poker and jeering at one another. Some still hadn’t even made it into their tents, and their buddies were dragging them by the armpits across the walkways. A few had been left abandoned out in the cold, stumbling aimlessly, unable to find their way back to their tent that looked exactly like everyone else's.

“Hey, Skinny?”

“Yeah, Peacock?”

Malarkey looked up. Two men, “Skinny” Sisk and Thomas Peacock, were sitting across from each other, just down the row.

“Hey, when we jump, you’re gonna be behind me right?” Peacock was rubbing his wrists. Malarkey slowed his gait, but didn’t try to hide himself.

“Yeah, why?”

“When the light turns green, can you tap my shoulder?”

Malarkey and Skinny both furrowed their brows, though the former tried to look away and pretend he hadn’t noticed the bizarre question.

“I mean sure, buddy, why?”

“Ah--just do it. Okay?”

“If you’re worried about freezing up, I can just shove you out,” Skinny replied with a short laugh, but Thomas shook his head.

Figuring it was just a man suffering from nerves, Malarkey continued on his way, trying to recall where he’d been assigned to. All of the tents looked the same, and by the time he found his stuff, he thought he’d walked up and down those rows a dozen times. He hadn’t wanted to accidentally interrupt, especially when it came to drunken soldiers, but became desperate when he realized he'd passed the same tents at least three times. He wasn’t even sure he wouldn't still be drunk by the time he woke up again. He'd be lucky if he got through the afternoon lectures. Luckily for the mass of drinking men, there would be no training the next day. Just long briefings. That was why, of course, they'd been allowed to drink one last time.

Scrambling into the tent, he hadn’t even noticed that Private Schoof, one of the women in his squad, was already wrapped up in the bunk underneath his. She had been drinking about as much as any man on the base, and whether it was because she liked it or was trying to develop a reputation remained to be seen.

Malark shucked off his boots, not bothering to try to change out of his uniform. Sixta might corner him the next morning, but it didn’t matter so long as he was asleep as soon as possible. However, the second his head hit the pillow, a muffled voice penetrated the silence.

“Hey, Redhead, you got my back, right?”

“What, Marissa?” Malarkey groaned irritably, partially just because he had to shift and lean his head over the bed to hear her properly.

“I’m sayin’, you won’t get me killed, right? Because so help me _god_ , if you get me killed Malarkey, I will be back to haunt your ass so fast.” She was half-asleep, and more than a little drunk.

“Hey, Schoof, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about the _big day_ , Malarkey.”

“What? You mean the jump?”

“Yes.” She rolled over onto her side, letting out a sigh, then nothing.

“Schoof? Marissa?” Malarkey giggled. “Alright.”

If she came back to haunt him, she’d probably just keep him alive out of spite, and he wouldn’t mind that at all. Not that he figured she would get herself (or that he would get her) killed. Not only was she a fantastic rifleman, she knew mortars almost as well as he did. A lot of the officers were nervous, shuffling their feet around, and to say he wasn’t nervous would be a lie. But Malarkey was also comforted by the men and women surrounding him. They were the dependable, sometimes a little rough around the edges, but a hell of a company.

He’d stay alive, he was certain, if only to make sure Skip, Marissa, Alex, and every other Echo Company member made it out too.


End file.
